Squat Warm Up with Ankle Mobility

Need more hip and low back mobility? Start with Day 1 of our Hip/Low Back Mobility Program for free:

This week I want to show you guys a cool way to integrate ankle mobility into your squatting warm up and positioning.

Improve the Range

The first thing I show in this video is a great way to get a little more movement in your ankles. What you do is get into a lunge, wrap your hands around the meat of your calf, twist the muscles of your leg in a direction that internally rotates the knee (see video for details), and lean forward. We are going to repeat this for 5 reps each leg.

Control the Range

Improving range of motion is cool, but learning how to create that range of motion actively and control it is like 1,000 times  cooler. Why would you want range of motion but not learn how to control it? To gain some of this active control, we are going to do a plank rock. Get into a good push up plank position and rock forward and backward from your ankles. Use the muscles on the front of your shins to pull yourself into ankle dorsiflexion and hold for 2 seconds. Doing this teaches your brain how to create ankle dorsiflexion while there is tension through your core musculature. This environment has good carryover into squatting.

Use the Range

Getting more range of motion and learning how to create it is cool...but the next level of coolness is using the newly acquired range of motion and control in the movement you actually wanted it for in the first place (100,000 times cooler). In this case, that's the squat.

For this we are going to do a bottoms up squat, meaning you start the squat in the bottom. To do this movement, you will stay in the plank you were just in and then push yourself into the bottom of a squat. Hold this for 2 seconds and then return to the plank. Do this for 5 reps.

The overall flow:

1. 5 calf twisting ankle mobilizations
2. 5 plank rocks with 2 second hold
3. 5 bottoms up squats with 2 second hold in squat

Repeat this for a few rounds if necessary and then go squat.

Thanks for reading,

- Ryan